The industry of casting cannons is quite different from mud guns, including mud molds, boring and fire gates, etc. Shen Yong never cast cannons back then. Mainly, there were a large number of cast cannons and craftsmen who built fire cannons in Dengzhou. In addition, there were Portuguese instructors, Sun Yuanhua did not mix these craftsmen, so Shen Yong was a little confused about casting cannons and other things.

However, these skills are mostly all-round. After the two sides had a while of communication, Shen Yong felt that the things that had troubled him for a long time had found a way of thinking, and his mind was clear and he thought quickly. After he had completely thought about it, a sense of ecstasy surged into his heart.

At this time, Min Yuanqi was still studying those machine tools. Shen Yong quickly walked to Min Yuanqi, and didn't even hold his fists. He said directly: "Sir, I have a good eye for drilling the gun barrel!"

Excited, he didn't even care about the title of "Sigu, Little Man, Little Man" and "Little Man").

Fortunately, Min Yuanqi didn't care at all. He looked at these machines here because he had some ideas and breakthroughs in his mind.

These things, if you look at the map or hear people say, have no intuitive impressions. Only when these things are placed in front of you can you really make breakthroughs.

Just as Min Yuanqi's mind was flashing, Shen Yong, with a gloomy face, also came over. Min Yuanqi smiled and said, "Don't be busy for now, I'll get something. I'll talk about mine first, and you'll talk about yours."

"Please tell me first."

"I saw that this punch was drilled out of the fire door with a drill bit, and the gun barrel was clamped on the drill table to fix it. I looked at it and felt that if the drill table was modified, the bottom bed was changed to a round hole shape, and the iron sheet made of fine iron was placed on it. This way, a fine iron ring would be... "

Speaking of this, Shen Yong already understood.

"What the sir said is extreme, extreme, extreme!" Shen Yong's voice trembled a little. He thought about it carefully. After a moment, he clasped his fists at Shen Yong and said, "Congratulations, sir, congratulations, this mail manufacturing can be carried out quickly. As long as there is enough manpower, enough fine iron, or even enough pig iron, we can also make at least a thousand sets of mail before the end of the year!"

Unlike the iron leaves that need to be polished carefully, and also the large iron sheets that are tied up with armor. The mail is just connected with iron rings.

A good mail can protect most of the body. If equipped with an iron helmet, neck guard, arm guard, shin guard, and protection ability is also quite good.

At least it is better than cloth armor than cotton armor. It is even better than cotton armor when defending against bows and arrows and cutting. The mail is stronger than cotton armor.

Of course, it is slightly weaker than piercing armor and scale armor.

One division of labor brings another part of strength, and there is nothing we can do about it.

Due to the lack of wire drawing technology and machines, China has never been able to mass-produce mails on a large scale like Europe.

In the Middle Ages to the popularity of firearms, Europe was not like the ones in films and TV dramas, which were worn with iron cans. That thing was too expensive and only real knights could equip it.

Plate armor is equipped with mail, and the knights have amazing defense abilities, but ordinary soldiers do not have the opportunity to assemble such gorgeous equipment.

Large-scale equipment is mail and an iron helmet. Such protection ability is actually good.

China has not solved the problem of wire drawing, which has resulted in almost no equipment before the Ming and Qing dynasties. By the Ming Dynasty, it could barely make mail. The output was very low and the protection was not comparable to that of iron scale armor. Therefore, in the Ming Dynasty, it only made quite rare mails in more than 200 years, and it was mainly equipped with imperial guards in the capital, and local military towns were rarely rated.

If Min Yuanqi is asked to choose, he will definitely give priority to equip the troops with plate armor, followed by iron scale armor, and then choose between mail and cotton armor.

The cotton armor is good for preventing bows and arrows and chopping. The cloth with thousands of hammers and forged thousands of hammers are inlaid with iron leaves, and the opposite collar cotton armor is almost all-body armor. The protective power is not bad after being assembled with accessories.

But this is not bad compared to things like cloth armor and leather armor. To put it bluntly, the so-called armor, including paper armor, are all things that are difficult to make and too expensive to make. When worn on ordinary soldiers, they just want to buy peace of mind for these cannon fodder.

The scales made of fine iron are the peak of protection. The real elites are not only a layer of iron scales, but often wear a layer of cotton armor or leather armor first, and then wear a layer of iron armor, double armor or even triple armor on the outside. In addition, they are extremely powerful and sensitive to reactions. This type of elites can often kill many people on the battlefield, and they are injured at most. After they can survive many times on the battlefield, they have extremely rich experience. These veterans who wear heavy armor and hold soldiers and fight on the battlefield are the most precious treasures in the army.

Applying armor and giving all soldiers a hand is definitely a crazy idea among the Ming generals. It is even unlikely that anyone would really think and do this, but this is Min Yuanqi's obsession.

Like Wu Xiang and Zu Dashou, and Li Chengliang's Li family, they enslaved a large number of military households, reclaimed a large number of farmland, and cultivated each Need into a small landlord. Everyone has the same interests. They use many methods such as dividing military pay and privately occupying land and enslaving military households and marrying them, thus creating an unbreakable general and forming a complete community of interests.

The Liaoxi General Gate was formed during the Wanli period, and its light was greater than that during the Chongzhen period and the Southern Ming period.

Even during the Kangxi period, decades later, the one who followed Wu Sangui to fight against the Qing Dynasty because of his reduction of the vassal states was the generals of the Liaoxi that year. The generals who followed Wu Sangui were either from the Liaoxixi generals or had close ties with the Liaoxi generals.

Even if there is such an armed group with common interests, it is impossible for the general to arm all the Needs.

Most of the armed forces of the Needs were acting on their own. In order to save their lives on the battlefield, they would try their best to use strong soldiers and wear heavy armor.

But not all Needi has the ability to do this. Only a few people can wear iron armor for three thousand iron cavalry. Most of them are double-breasted cotton armor, which is also the mainstream choice for cavalry in western Liaoning.

Especially at the end of Chongzhen, the court was unable to invest more money and grain in Liao Town, and the generals completely gave up the land in Jinzhou area and no longer had the idea of ​​pioneering.

The Needs also followed suit. They couldn’t enjoy the fine wine and fat sheep, so they had to spend money on armor, weapons and war horses?

If the imperial court had not invested more than one million in money and grain a year, it would have been the remaining Liao Town troops, and even the strength to fight against Li Zicheng for several days.

Min Yuanqi's thoughts are crazy enough to most people.

All members are given mail, and all sword cards and cavalry are mailed and pricked.

The spearman has mail with zippers, and the back row is equipped with cotton or leather armor and mail.

The gunman has all the mail and iron helmets.

Although such an army is not as brilliant as the full-staff plate armor or iron scale armor, it is definitely a strange flower in the regression period of this civilization in the late Ming Dynasty.

When Min Yuanqi thought of how he could do this, he was so excited that he trembled all over.

Of course, if everyone could wear plate armor and a layer of mail... Min Yuanqi could not even think about this picture.

Shen Yong dared to think: "Sir, it is indeed a good idea to make iron rings by impacting the iron sheets in this way. If we have sufficient hydraulic power to continuously forge iron sheets with hammers to create the two-sided plate armor that adults want, it doesn't seem difficult?"

Min Yuanqi felt excited, but still shook his head.

Hydraulic impact plate armor is the correct idea, but it involves many difficulties, including hydraulic power, and the machine that drives hammering. This thing is simple to say, but very complicated and difficult to do.

At least there is no hydraulic stamping. The plate armor in Europe is hit with a hydraulic hammer to make the plate armor smoother and brighter, rather than the hydraulic molding as imagined. That is impossible.

More like the rice pounding hammer used by Chinese people to use the method of trampling. A wooden hammer is hung on the wooden rack, one end is trampled on and the other end is placed on the rice. This constantly beats it, removes the rice and gets refined rice. The principle of forging the plate armor is similar to that of the hammer, but it is just to replace the wooden hammer with iron, from light to heavy.

The plate armor hammer in Europe weighs more than 200 kilograms, and it can constantly hit and knead the sponge iron, and can be made into low-carbon steel with a very uniform carbon content in a very short time. After forging and forming, what you get is plate armor with a qualified hardness and amazing defense.

However, the steel made by China's steel stir-frying method has extremely uneven carbon content and is too high in sulfur content. When making thin iron plates with a larger area, they are extremely prone to cracking.

Min Yuanqi had long considered the issue of making plate armor, but later he figured it out that Europeans directly beat pig iron blocks into thin iron plates with hydraulic hammers. The subsequent forging and forming still requires a lot of craftsmen and time. There is no hydraulic forging and forming integrated molding. That is a hydraulic press. How is this possible in this era?

However, in the future, if you have sufficient funds, you can buy a large amount of fine iron and directly build a plate armor. In fact, it saves more time and iron than iron scale armor. However, with Min Yuanqi's funds and connections at this stage, this large-scale purchase of fine iron cannot be supported. The matter of building a plate armor can only be discussed later.

Shen Yong was not depressed by Min Yuanqi's rejection, but said with regret: "It's a pity that I thought too late. If I had thought earlier, this time the Shandong visiting troops came, we would have at least a few hundred more mails!"

This kind of punching machine technology is not complicated. According to Shen Yong and others' skills, they can figure it out in just a few days, and more than ten or twenty days of kung fu can be enough to imitate many.

The punching machine is enough, the mold is better made, and the fine iron is ready-made. At least, the fine iron that has been purchased for several months is stored.

When Min Yuanqi bought strategic materials, he considered whether they were good or not and whether they could use them. As for money, it was the second step. Even if he had the money, he would buy it.

Otherwise, the income of tens of thousands of taels per month will definitely exceed 200,000 taels so far. The imperial court gave a one-year discount of only 200,000 yuan, which is just Min Yuanqi's income for several months.

So much silver is used cleanly, including pig iron, cooked iron, fine iron, sugang, nitr sulfonium, war horses. The purchase of these materials has always been the top priority. As long as there is one word for buying, no other consideration is considered at all.

Now I buy fine iron, I am afraid it will cost tens of thousands of kilograms, and cooked iron, hundreds of thousands of kilograms, and they are all purchased from the Jiangnan area by canal ships, and the transportation cost is very low.

Fortunately, Jiangnan also produced railway land at this time and the output was very high.

If you have to wait for Fujian Minzhi, although the quality is high, the purchase cycle will be much longer.

Fujian Railways are stockpiled in Jiangbei and Jiangnan, but the price is high and the land is too scattered. It is better to go directly to Jiangnan Railway Station to buy on a large scale, which is much cheaper and more affordable.

With so many pig iron, cooked iron and refined iron, and if you don’t buy the purchase channels, you will keep buying it. It is estimated that the armor will be quite easy to make it. At least it is relatively easy for all members to equip the mail.

Then, the cavalry, knife player and front row spearmen were equipped with plate armor, one layer of plate armor and another layer of mail. In this era, they were standard heavy cavalry and heavy infantry.
Chapter completed!